
Golden again: Raiders goalie coach Guard returns triumphant from World Juniors
Kelly Guard has represented Canada at an international event twice in the last five months. Both times he’s done so as a goaltending coach, and both times Canada has come away golden.
Guard was the goaltending coach for the World Junior team that won gold in dramatic fashion with an overtime winner on the night of January 5. The moment Dylan Guenther scored that overtime goal was the product of some work he had done as well.
“We’d seen the play create and he was driving that far post,” Guard said. “It was part of the pre-scout, getting (Tomas) Suchanek (goaltender for team Czechia) to move to his left side, by his glove and get it up. I’ll give Suchanek credit, he barely got it past him.”
The tournament started out on a rocky note for Canada’s goaltenders as they dropped the opener by a 5-2 count to the same Czechia team they would go on to defeat in the final. From there, however, the goaltending was consistently solid.